Monthly Archives: April 2012

EBT, I can tell if you need it by what you buy

Standard

So let’s talk about EBT, known better as Food Stamps. It’s a plastic card with an American Flag image, and is used to buy your food. You have to apply for this card, but I’m not sure the standards and checks and balances are really in place to see if you NEED this service. Here’s why. I’ll give you a few examples and I’m not exaggerating or blaming, just letting you know what I see every day. All of the following examples are using EBT.

50 Year old black woman, buys pasta, sauce, soup, meat, frozen veggies, bottled water, fresh veggies, coffee, ice cream.  Does she need it or not? I say yes because she’s buying food with meals in mind.

Elderly white couple, soups, bananas, milk, yogurt, peanuts, chicken, pretzels. Do they need it? I think they do and I also think they must do most of their shopping elsewhere but get a few things at my store. This doesn’t seem like enough food to really make a meal but it is more than just snacks.

40something white couple, lots of steaks and pot roasts, lots of potatos and barbeque sauce, house brand cereal and sodas. Do they need it? I’m not sure. Seems like a lot of one kind of food, and likely a luxery shopping trip. When you’re on a budget (of your own money) you don’t spend 50$ on prime steaks. My vote is that they are on the edge of need and are abusing the system.

23 year old black girl. She buys bread and lunch meat, house brand cereal and milk, and lean cuisines that are on sale.She uses coupons and shops the sales. Does she need it? Yes. Her food seems like the exact thing a young single gal would eat every day.

30’something black couple. They buy name brand soda, name brand cereal cups (that’s a prepackaged cup of fruit loops, just add milk and a spoon), lunchables, name brand chips, lots of ice cream and about 10 assorted boxes of what I call sugar cakes. Things like hostess cupcakes, honey buns, brownie bars etc. They also buy crab legs and prime steak. None of what they get is on sale and they don’t use coupons. Do they need it? No. This is all junk food and luxury items. They clearly buy their real food elsewhere and use their EBT at my store to buy all their junk food.

40something white woman with her daughter. She buys ALL “sugar cakes” and chips, mountain dew and ice cream. Her bill is literally $200.00 of junk food and soda. I am disgusted. Obviously she does not NEED EBT she is just abusing it to feed her fat face and her fat daughters fat face. (fat much? wonder why….cupcakes!!!)

It has become so obvious to me now, that I  guess correctly if you’re going to use EBT about 90% of the time and am shocked the other 10% when you either A) use real money to buy your junk food binge, or B) use EBT to buy your real food. It is absolutely an issue. For every three people buying real food on EBT there are seven people buying junk food and luxury items on EBT.  It is shameful and abusive, selfish and sinful. If you are one of the folks using the system and abusing the system you should be ashamed of yourself. Just because you live in America you think it’s the governments job to take care of you? It’s not. It’s your own job. So get a job, get off disability, put yourself on a budget and act like a grown up and not like a kid in a candy store with a found $20 dollar bill.

Awesome Sauce

Standard

Did you know your cashier is being timed? From the minute she swipes your first item, to the time she hands you your receipt and change, she’s being timed. It’s called “customer throughput” as in, get the customer and get them through the line as fast as possible. My speed has been 84% and more recently 94%. Last week however I was feeling a bit irritable and frustrated and I didn’t even TRY. I actually did the opposite of what I was told to do in order to get higher numbers. Do you see where this is going? 

My number for last week was 102%. In addition to that I had the second highest volume of customers. That is to say, if there were 100 customers, Zena had 14% of them and I had 12% of them, and the rest of the cashiers had 11,8,6,3,2 etc. 

I’ve dubbed myself “Awesome Sauce”. As in, II’m awesome, and saucy. Yeah baby. 

Next week I’ll probably be 94% again since that seems my average, but this week I’m enjoying the awesome sauce.